Another Time, Another Earth
by ice73
Summary: -Post–manga Nausicaä, AU Arjuna, Macross Zero- Juna Ariyoshi is killed protecting Tokyo from a nuclear threat and is sent to an unlikely time and place, to meet a girl whose destiny is to become mankind's judge, jury . . . and executioner.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:**_Kaze no Tani no Naushika_ © Animage/ Hayao Miyazaki/ Studio Ghibli. _Chikyuu Shoujo Arjuna_ © ARJUNA PROJECT/ Sotsu Agency/ TV Tokyo. _Macross Zero_ © Shoji Kawamori/ Bandai/ Satelight/ Big West and whoever else owns that blasted jumble of legal entanglements. This work is not intended for commercial gain or to otherwise challenge the status of these copyrights.

**Author's Note:** This is part of another story (under heavy revision) from an Anime Addventure thread I'm writing entitled _Ghibli Travelers_. Basically, it involves Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind being unable to get home from the Christmas Party at Studio Ghibli (which see my other fanfic "A Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind Christmas"), along with Marco Pagot and Donald Curtis. They meet up with a vacationing (and college-level and AU and whose love life with Tokio Ooshima is in a shambles thanks to a monumental misunderstanding) Juna Ariyoshi as they roam around Tokyo, and while the men from _Porco Rosso_ are able to return to their time, Nausicaä is stuck in the real world, slowly dying because her body is not adapted to our relatively clean environment. Juna is able to keep her alive, and they both get accidentally involved with a SEED TI gone rogue. That rogue TI steals an atomic demolition munition from a North Korean freighter selling the bomb to some Japanese Red Army terrorists. He intends to use it in revenge for mankind's mistreatment of the environment. SEED goes after the TI, Arkady Klimov, and in a massive firefight in a Yokohama dock area kills him. But the bomb timer has gone down to less than an hour, and no one wants to tamper with the device for fear of booby traps. Nausicaä and Arjuna do the only thing left possible: they lash the bomb onto Mehve and fly out with it into the Pacific night, where it detonates and kills them both.

But oft it has been said that death is never really the end, and for our two self-sacrificing heroines this saw proves true: Nausicaä is sent away to the Spirit World, where Angel (the winged girl from _On Your Mark_) brings her to Chihiro Ogino and Nigihayami Kohakunushi, to begin the process of restoring her so she may return to her own reality; Juna ends up somewhere else, to begin her own journey back to the world she left behind. This is her part of the story.

**Summary:** (post-manga _Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind,_ AU _Earth Girl Arjuna,_ pre-OAV _Macross Zero_) Juna Ariyoshi is killed protecting Tokyo from a nuclear threat, and winds up in an unlikely place and time, to help and be helped by a girl whose destiny is to become mankind's judge, jury... and executioner.

PROLOGUE

**For the wages of heroism is death.  
**-J.R.R. Tolkien, _Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics_

Away they flew, away from the comfortably familiar lights of the Japanese capital and out into the unknown darkness over the Pacific. They had crossed Tokyo Bay and passed over Chiba prefecture before Nausicaä spoke up.

"How are you doing, Juna?" she asked the figure below her. They were both on Mehve, lying prone and clinging to its handlebars.

"I'm fine," answered the Avatar. She was in Arjuna form and had one palm pressed against Mehve's surface, feeding what power she could into the glider. They had discovered earlier that something—a piece of shrapnel or a stray bullet, they couldn't determine what it was—had punctured its engine. After they had lashed Arkady's nuclear toy onto Mehve using Arjuna's ribbons Nausicaä had test-flown the glider once and reported that it was performing sluggishly, most likely because of the damage it had suffered. Fearing that they wouldn't get the bomb far enough away from Tokyo in time, Arjuna had tried to overcome the glider's torpidity by feeding the engine power from herself, and so far it seemed to be working. Nausicaä's fears of an engine fire were proving unfounded.

"Nausicaä-_hime?_"

"Yes?"

"Actually, I'm scared out of my mind."

"So am I. Best we turn our attention to something else. Hey, do you think we could do what I told you earlier?"

"Which is?"

"Zoom climb to twenty thousand and push over?" Unseen by Arjuna, Nausicaä frowned. "Oh, wait, I left my sack and oxygen mask at Koganei." When she had first come to this world the Princess had been carrying a sack which contained her supplies, a small Dorok oxygen tank and mask, and the shipwrecked pig she had come across on an island, Boo. She had never needed the bag since she arrived at Koganei, so she had inadvertently left it on the wall of her room in the studio.

"So?"

"I can't breathe above ten thousand."

"I can take care of that." Arjuna twisted around until she was looking up at the Princess, then removed the hand pressing against Mehve momentarily, pressed her index finger against her lips, and touched Nausicaä's own with it. "There," she said. "You won't have to worry about that anymore."

Nausicaä nodded in thanks, shifted her body rearward and took Mehve up at best climb speed.

------oOo------

"Well, do something!" wailed Katsunari Hoshinogawa, Juna's old schoolmate and now a SEED trainee, as she stood watching Teresa Wong helping the casevac crew load the laden stretchers into the belly of the CH-47J. "Go after them!"

"And what would that accomplish, Katsunari-chan?" asked Miss Wong, adjusting the FN P90 slung at high port against her chest. "Do I send more people to their death? They wouldn't be able to save Juna even if they tried. They'd just get caught up in the explosion."

The neophyte telepath sniffled. "You're heartless."

Teresa Wong's head snapped up and her eyes flashed. For a moment it appeared she wanted to shout something, but mastered her anger enough to remain silent.

"Yes," she said finally. "I'm damned heartless. You're right about that. Now you and your boyfriend haul your asses into the helicopter before I kick them there." She spun away and her black combat boots banged on the Chinook's loading ramp as she tramped into its cavernous belly.

Something touched Katsunari's elbow, and the dusky-skinned girl turned to see Cindy Klein standing behind her, grasping her with her injured hand.

"Way to go, Hoshinogawa," she said, looking at Katsunari with those eerie yellow pupils of hers. "You've never been as shallow as this. Congratulations."

"Bug off, Klein," returned Katsunari. "I'm tired of seeing your face. Why don't you go bother someone else?" She pulled her elbow away from Cindy's touch.

"Alright." Cindy hovered hesitantly a moment longer beside her. "I just want to say I'm sorry too, for what it's worth. And I want you to remember that Miss Wong is the one who has to make the hard decisions." Then she left, heading for another of the newly-arrived casevac choppers, a Boeing Explorer.

Katsunari watched as the Chinook's ramp began to close. There was a building whine and a loud _tak-tak-tak, tak-tak-tak_ as the helicopter's engines started up. The massive three-bladed rotors above her head began to move. _Why even bother tending to the wounded?_ she thought miserably. _We'll all probably end up dead in a couple of minutes anyway._ Word of the nuke had quickly spread throughout the assault force's relief crew. She turned her gaze to the east. _Juna..._

------oOo------

"Here. You might want to use this to pass the time." Nausicaä handed down a small rectangular object to her passenger, careful not to lose it in the cold, whipping wind.

"Ka-chan's mini-iPod?" Arjuna took the device from her. The instant she removed her hand from Mehve, the glider sputtered and began to lose speed. She quickly turned into Juna Ariyoshi and hooked the iPod into her jeans' waistband. She felt Mehve nose over as she inserted the earphones into her ears.

"What's happening?" she asked Nausicaä. "What're you doing?"

"Hold on," the Princess cautioned her. "This is a zero-g dive. For maximum acceleration."

Juna felt the rush of the wind build up and blinked. She wished she had brought goggles along with her. Then an idea came into her mind, and she materialized another one of her translucent white ribbons and, letting go of Mehve's handlebars for a moment and flying in close formation with it, tied the strip around her head. It was helpful, but not by much.

"I wish I had a helmet like yours," she told the Princess as she regained her hold on the kite. She blindly reached down and pressed the iPod's center button, and a sweet, serene voice came pouring out of the earphones. Juna looked down, and finding the earphone cord missing its usual control buttons, adjusted the volume manually on the device itself. By the iPod Mini's auto-activated light she saw the song's title scroll across its little LCD screen.

_Kuniaki Haishima - Arkan Part I, Holy Raz.mp3_

Juna listened and smiled to herself. Typical, that a romantic like Ka-chan had such tastes in music.

"I'm sorry I didn't return that to Katsunari," Nausicaä apologized, seeing Juna fiddling with the player. "I left it in my belt pouch."

"Oh, that's okay." Juna replaced her hand on Mehve. "I don't think she'll mind. Did you hear the songs she wanted you to hear?"

Nausicaä pulled her cloth helmet's goggles into place as the kite continued to build up speed. "Yes. I didn't know they made music about me." There was a smile in her voice. "I don't know whether to feel embarrassed or proud."

"Both, I guess. _Hime-sama?_"

"Hmm?"

"I'm sorry your trip to this world had to end this way."

"It's alright." Nausicaä paused. "I find I'm not so afraid of dying any more, now that I've heard those songs, because I know as long as people continue to listen to them I'll live forever in their hearts. I just wish..."

"Really? You're not afraid of dying?"

Another pause. "Not as much as the first time. It's not the dying I'm afraid of, it's the pain I'll experience along the way. You?"

"I'll miss my mother. And my friends. I guess Chris Hawken will have to find another Avatar to protect my home." Juna's thoughts wandered back to her first kiss with Tokio Ooshima, and her heart contracted. _I'll miss you too, Tokio. There are so many things I still want to ask you, so many things I still want to say. When did our friendship turn to love? Who do you really care for, Sayuri or me? I wish there was some way I could tell you goodbye. Looks like I'll never be able to do that now._ Tears started to well in her eyes, and she was glad Nausicaä couldn't possibly see them as they finally trickled out, to soak into the ribbon tied around her face. And when that was saturated with moisture, to be blown out into the night by the icy wind, like unseen pearls of sadness.

------oOo------

Teresa Wong stared out the round window as the Chinook bore them back to Kobe. She had asked the pilot to fly a course that would keep the southeast in her view. Almost all the SEED soldiers who were in the Chinook with her were also looking out the port-side windows. Some, like Katsunari, were weeping openly. Others had dazed and dumbfounded expressions on their faces. A few still had stony countenances, and Teresa wondered if they were wearing masks or if they had none at all and were like that naturally.

She was puzzling over how they had managed to clear the area without being accosted by the Tokyo police, and chalked it up as another one of Lady Luck's caprices. Of course they had no time to sanitize the place. Gouts of blood, piles of gore and innumerable shell casings—not to mention the wreck of a Comanche—still littered the battle area. She would parcel out as much of the nasty PR job as she could to someone else in the SEED hierarchy. She was just too tired and heartsick to care much about it anymore.

It had been an accident, really. Arkady was about to give up when someone's hot M-60E3 cooked off a round. Teresa had turned to bark the instruction 'Hold your fire' to her men, and in the process accidentally bumped her side against a lathe table and depressed her radio's transmit button. The waiting Apache gunner heard a clipped and emphatic '—fire!' in his headset and thought it was a command meant for him. Thus ended the life of Arkady Klimov, the Russian TI. Teresa hadn't known whether to go berserk or laugh miserably at the pathetic situation, which made her all the more angry when Katsunari had accused her of being heartless.

And now Juna herself was also going to die, along with that strange girl she had come to the warehouse with. Reminded of the Avatar, the SEED leader looked at her wristwatch. It was almost time.

------oOo------

_Nausicaä._ The ghostly mind-voice grew louder. _Nausicaä._

The warrior princess saw something at the periphery of her vision. _Namulith?_ She twisted her head to get a better view, but the thing shifted so that she could see its blue-white glow, but not its entirety. _What are you doing here?_

_What else? I've up and died, Nausicaä. Some of those blasted insects ate my head. Thought I'd see how you were doing, girl who would save the world._

_As you can see, Namulith, I'm not doing very well at the moment. It's odd that you should visit me right now._

_Well, I'm a creature of the dark, aren't I? So I think coming to you on this occasion is only fitting. I also came to ask what's happened to my country, that I gave to you._

_I let go of it. I gave it to Chikuku._

_What?_ An incredulous snort._ You gave it to that child?_

_It's rightfully his. Not mine. Charuka and the Council of Priests rule it in his name, until he comes of age._

_Didn't find the burden to your liking, eh?_ There was a hollow laugh.

_Namulith, my cares are greater than one kingdom's. Consider yourself fortunate that we met again, for now I can honestly say that I forgive you of all you've done, even if no one else will. Go in peace._

There was a period of silence. _I can see you've grown, Nausicaä. I couldn't take over your mind now, even if I wanted to. But I really think you've overstretched yourself this time. There's no Ohmu now to save you from your recklessness._

_I need no saving. Go follow your brother Miralupa and be at peace with yourself and the world._

_Oh, no._ The voice grew harsher. _I will not rest until I see you and your cowardly and traitorous friends dragged down into the mud like I was. Savior of humanity indeed. The only thing that needs saving is the world itself—from nihilistic, deluded fools like you. Why did you destroy the Crypt of Shuwa? You're just as much a murderer as I was, Nausicaä._

_Yes, I am. I never claimed to be something other than what I was. I am just as foul and stinking as you. But I have yet to learn what your predecessor's despair was like. I have yet to belittle people and consider them as goods to be sold, or their lives as mere commodities to be used or traded. That's the difference between us, Namulith. In the end, you and the Master of the Crypt worked only for your own weal._

_You will do the same, I fear,_ the Emperor's Brother replied quietly. _In time you will learn to hate the people who depend on you, who never stop whining and complaining, who are too small-minded to understand what it takes to rule a kingdom and live in harmony. The dumb, stupid and uneducated masses. It would have been better if they had perished under your son's fire than go on struggling to live like they do._

_That, Namulith, is something I sincerely doubt. Goodbye._

The blue glowing thing slowly moved itself into the center of Nausicaä's field of view, and to her horror it was a skull with red flames issuing forth from its empty eye sockets. Its worm-eaten bones were a macabre lacework that made her want to retch even as she looked at it.

_Goodbye, Nausicaä daughter of Jhil. I'll see you soon._

------oOo------

Katsunari cried quietly in her seat, heedless of everyone and everything around her. Yuuki cradled her against him. He didn't cry himself; he was just too ornery to do that. But his eyes also glistened as he looked out into the darkness beyond the city.

When the false dawn came, he followed Teresa Wong's instruction—shouted above the whine of the T58 turbines—and closed his eyes against the sight-damaging glare. He crushed Katsunari in his arms, keeping her from looking out the window; prevented from seeing the bright fireball that marked her dear Juna's violent farewell, she sobbed louder and more bitterly.

_Goodbye, Juna,_ Yuuki thought. _Thanks for sparing KatKat. And goodbye to you too, Princess Nausicaä. Thank you, both of you. Thank you._

**Someone once told me that if life were a maze, you would never find the end,  
For the end is death, and death itself is but a new beginning.**


	2. Another Time, Another Earth

ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER EARTH 

"Well, here we are," Tokio Ooshima said as he and Sayuri stopped in the nearly-empty lobby of the latter's dormitory. They had just been out on a date, and it had been a hectic night of club-hopping and dancing, plus a short walk in Meriken Park and a ride on the Ferris wheel, animatedly talking and taking in the sights of Kobe's port area.

"Thank you, Tokio-kun," said the brown-haired young lady with the round eyeglasses. "I had a nice time."

"Yeah, me too. Thanks for helping me with my... father."

"I was glad to be of service." Sayuri smiled impishly at him. "Of course, I'll want a reward..." She closed her eyes and tilted her face upwards.

"Sayuri-chan, I..." Tokio bit his lips and opted to kiss her gently on the cheek. At the touch Sayuri opened her eyes.

"Tokio..."

"I'm sorry. I know you deserve more than that, but I'm... confused." Tokio sighed heavily. "I can't—"

Sayuri shushed him by grabbing the lapels of his dark leather jacket and planting her lips full on his mouth. Tokio reflexively brought his hands up to her shoulders to push her away, but stopped himself and let her kiss him for as long as she liked.

She broke the kiss off, and her gaze lingered momentarily on Tokio's lips, then transferred itself to his eyes. "After this long," she whispered, "you still don't know your own heart... _un-chan_, if you ever need me, you know where to find me." She flashed him a smile, did a quick about-face, and walked hurriedly to one of the nearby corridors, disappearing down it as she went to her room to cry.

With infinite sadness in his heart Tokio watched her go. _Un-chan._ Derogatory for some, the term was a private joke, something shared only between them. No one else called him that, not even Juna. He stood still for a long while, moving only to push his half-round red sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. The quiet, mellifluous strains of popular Maaya Sakamoto's _Kuuki to Hoshi_ drifted in from the hidden PA speakers in the vicinity. Poor Sayuri. She'd been so helpful and supportive as Tokio sought to mend fences with his father. It had been the hardest thing he had ever done, but she was there, not asking for much in return—until now. She didn't deserve this, he thought bitterly. She really didn't. And what did that make him? He didn't want to dwell on the answer, but somewhere in there were the words 'manipulative shithead.'

The Docomo cellphone in his pants pocket buzzed. He dug it out and flipped it open. The Maaya Sakamoto song was suddenly cut off at the same moment with a hissing crackle, and a news bulletin, delivered in a swift male voice, began to replace it. Tokio read the message on the screen. It was from his mother, telling him to get back home on the double. The reason why was given after it, and for a moment the unreality of the situation prevented him from comprehending things.

A nuclear bomb had just exploded some miles offshore from the Japanese capital.

Tokio reread the message, unbelieving. Wasn't Juna in Tokyo with Katsunari and her boyfriend? According to her mother she still hadn't returned from vacation. He grimaced and ran out the dormitory, hopped onto his motorbike and put on his helmet. He started the machine and summarily sped off, the loose ends of his blond hair fluttering in the wind as he headed for the apartment block were Juna lived with her mother and sister. The full moon was out tonight, hovering above his chosen road like a beacon showing him the way he must travel.

------oOo------

Juna Ariyoshi slowly woke up to a see a green jungle canopy above her. The sun-gilt leaves fluttered, and the wind made a gentle _surussus_ as it passed through the tree branches, as if whispering to her _welcome, welcome._ She felt warm and comforted, despite the thousand questions flitting through her mind.

"Oh," she moaned as she tried to move. Her body ached something fierce in a thousand places. She looked down to see herself wearing her shredded aura suit. Or at least, a teensy-weensy part of it. She was virtually naked; almost nothing of the suit was left, just pink strips and patches here and there. Her exposed skin was red, as if she had been sunburnt.

She shook her head. Why was she still hearing that Arkan song of Ka-chan's? She no longer had the iPod. The last thing she remembered was the bomb's counter ticking down the final three seconds, and her body spontaneously turning into Arjuna as she, terrified, said her last farewell to the Princess of the Valley of Wind. Then the whole world exploded into a blinding white nova. There was a sense of fear, of sadness, regret, tearing pain, and longing... then nothing. Nothing until she woke up here.

She focused her vision and took in her surroundings. She found herself lying alone in a shallow pool about fifteen meters in diameter, her upper back and head propped up against an ancient-looking structure resembling a gigantic needle with unreadable markings. The pool was as still as liquid glass and the surrounding jungle, aside from the wind, seemed hushed and quiet.

Juna started a little as she saw, standing at the perimeter of the pool, a young woman with long, straight black hair. Her oval face was framed by the cloth headband in her hair, and she wore a loose cream-colored shift with dark-banded sleeves and hem, with a standing collar decorated by alternating purple and violet triangles. She bore a wing-bladed staff in one hand. A golden medallion in the shape of a stylized bird with one staring eye hung from her neck. She was looking intently at her.

"Who are you?" the Avatar managed to stammer across the water. Somehow it seemed sacrilegious, disturbing the silence like that with her voice.

"I am the hand guided by the wind," answered the strange girl as she waded into the pool and helped Juna up. "I am the keeper of my people's lore. My name is Sara Nome."

Juna found herself somewhat surprised she could understand the woman's speech. Her dusky features and tribal dress reminded her of one of her anthro classes in college, the one with the strict bald-headed professor and the difficult paper. _The Effects And Ramifications Of An Expanding Technological Civilization On Isolated Ancient Cultures: An Overview And Opinion_, she had entitled it. She had put her best effort into that work, but had received a lower-than-expected mark for it, simply because her world view clashed with that of her teacher's.

College. That life seemed so far away now, and for a moment the Avatar felt a rush of longing to return to it. It was safe and small. And it had her friends in it.

"I'm Juna Ariyoshi," the Avatar introduced herself. She offered her hand in friendship, and after a moment of careful consideration Sara clasped it in her own. The woman's grasp was firm enough to convince her she really wasn't dead. "Where am I? Is this Heaven?"

Sara's eyebrows went up. "Heaven? I don't know what you're talking about. If you're dead, then so am I. You're on Mayan Island. This place is my home. I was taking a swim in this very pool when you suddenly fell out of the sky and almost landed on my head." Her eyes narrowed. "Are you a _tori no hito?_"

_Bird-person?_ Juna thought in confusion. She had only heard that term used in reference to Nausicaä. Brave, selfless Nausicaä, who was no longer with her. For a heartbeat she wondered where the Princess was.

"I am not," she answered. "I don't even know how I got here."

"A powerful spirit protected you and sent you here," Sara replied self-assuredly. "It has instructed me to help you get back home."

Hope appearing out of nothingness sent Juna's heart soaring. "You can do that?"

"Yes, but you must help me."

"I'm not sure I can, Sara," said Juna, feeling herself empty of the Avatar's power.

The other girl chuckled. "After what you've been through, I'm sure you can't help me now. Judging by your looks, you need a lot of rest before I can send you back home. Come with me to my village. You may stay in my house until you're well enough. Oh, and before I forget..." The woman reached behind her with her free hand and brought out a parcel of folded cloth. "Here. I was going to wear this, but you might want to use it yourself. As it is, you're too indecent for me to bring you to the village."

Juna looked down at the vast expanse of skin showing through the pink slivers of her torn aura suit, accepted the parcel and gulped as Sara continued to stand there, watching her attentively. She blushed and covered her nakedness with the package. "Umm..."

"What? Oh, I'm sorry!" Sara excused herself, and for the first time Juna saw a smile on the other girl's face. "I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable. I'm just not used to seeing someone with skin as fair as yours. And then there's that dark mark on your forehead." Sara gestured at the pool around them. "Do you wish to bathe first before changing and going to the village with me?"

_Dark mark?_ Juna would learn shortly that the Drop of Time embedded in her forehead had changed color to a flat, dark indigo, becoming almost black. "Bathing would be a good idea," she decided, warming to the thought. She placed the parcel on the rock she had woken up leaning against and stepped into a deeper part of the pool. After she had sunk into the clear liquid, she tore off the remainder of her aura suit, modestly covering up her private parts with her arms and hands.

Sara looked on as Juna folded her legs to further conceal herself. "Would you mind if I join you?" she asked. "I still haven't finished refreshing myself."

Juna smiled slightly. "If you want to. I'm not so comfortable being the only one without clothes on."

Sara nodded, buried her staff in the sand so it stood upright in the water, then boldly removed her dress. Underneath her raiment she wore nothing. She carefully hung her clothing on the staff. Juna watched as she dove into the pool, swam a couple of laps, and broke the surface near her, eventually adopting the same position as the Avatar and sitting in the water, facing her across a small hollow lined with flat gray rocks.

"Your mind is filled with questions. But answer mine first: who are you, stranger, without your name?" Sara asked. Her water-beaded, slick-haired countenance was now much more friendly than when Juna had first seen it.

"Well..." The Avatar gathered her thoughts and began to talk.


	3. The Mayan Village

THE MAYAN VILLAGE 

Juna ran far out into the surf and cast her net, watching it unfurl itself and disappear with thin sparkling splashes into the iridescent blue water. Then, after waiting several seconds, she tugged on the line attached to her wrist to close and retrieve it, and was pleased to discover five fish wriggling in its folds.

She placed her catch in the basket hanging around her waist, careful not to let their slipperiness betray her. She was happier than she had been in a long time. The _Toki no Shizuku_ in her forehead had been strangely dark and quiescent ever since she had arrived here on Mayan Island. She had no powers, could no longer transform into Arjuna, and discovered—to her guilty delight—that she could indulge herself in some of her former bad habits, like eating heavily-processed foods. Tinned corned beef and tepid cola had never tasted so good.

Nevertheless, she wasn't about to go binge on them. Sara had told her that she was to go back home, and she couldn't very well show up in front of Chris all polluted and weak once more, could she? He'd just leave her stranded in the Japanese Alps again, to 'purify' herself. The fact that she was even alive to imagine such a scene was another reason why she was happy. After all, who else in the whole wide world had apparently managed to survive a point-blank atomic explosion? The thought had entered Juna's mind earlier that she was now the human equivalent of a cockroach, and she broke into peals of laughter at the image until Sara pointedly asked her if the blazing tropical sun had fried her brains, and to be careful lest she cut herself with the knife she was using. That got her to shut up, and she went back to scaling the fish she had caught.

The Mayan village was a small, idyllic place, and Sara a kind, if somewhat taciturn, host. In exchange for her stay Juna helped with the chores, as part of what was now a three-girl household. She caught fish, gutted and cleaned them, gathered fruit, collected firewood, and did the washing; her efforts freed Sara to tend more to her duties as shaman-in-training and make more of the the curious love sticks that seemed to be an integral part of the island's romantic traditions: you offered one to the person you fancied, and if he or she accepted it, then you two were a couple. In addition, she answered all the questions Sara's younger sister Mao and her friends had about the outside world and its unusual and wondrous ways. It seemed that few, if any, outsiders came to the island. Mostly the men left for greener pastures and brighter futures, never to return, so the villagers consisted mostly of women and children, and old folk. There was a decrepit, broken-down generator in one of the huts, plus wires for electricity, and even a dish antenna for communication with the outside world, but all were beyond Juna's ability to repair.

When she had first arrived some of the villagers had looked askance at her, a foreigner, but the young shaman—about Juna's age, as it were—seemed to command some respect and assured them that she was innocent of their suspicions and worthy, as far as she could tell, of their trust. The people bowed to her judgment and welcomed Juna into their village.

Early into her stay, Juna noticed several of the local boys and men eyeing her with interest. From what Mao divulged, they were enamored of her pale complexion and different features. In fact, so enamored that when she had first gone out to fish with Mao under the sun she received repeated warnings about getting sunburnt, and heard several of the men complain about her skin getting tanned. One of the boys had even offered her a blanket to shield herself with. Juna found herself secretly liking the attention. The ironic thing was, she was just another girl in Japan, even though she was the Avatar of Time; here, though she had no powers and was just another mortal, she was was special, through no fault of her own. That definitely made her happy.

It somehow seemed to not matter to her that she was, for the present, stuck here on Mayan in the early part of the year 2007. At night, as she looked out the open windows at the stars, she idly wondered if she had an alter-ego in this world, and if she had, was it still living in Kobe? She wished she could turn into Arjuna and fly back home to just have a peep at herself. But... no. From the smattering of information about the outside world she had heard from Sara and the other villagers, there had been a great war involving much of the world. She fervently hoped that Kobe had been spared any damage.

She looked down at her entire catch and decided that it would be enough for them for dinner. Shutting the basket lid, she turned around and waded back through the waist-deep water to shore. Waiting for her on the blinding white sand was Mao.

"Are you done?" the energetic girl asked.

Juna nodded. "Is this enough?" She lifted the basket lid with one hand as she brushed particles of sand off her slightly too-big blue shorts with the other. It had been lent to her by a generous soul.

"Oh, no, not scud again," moaned Mao. "I'm getting tired of this." She reached in, grabbed the small, torpedo-like fish and hurled it back out into the water.

"Hey! I worked hard to get that!"

"Don't worry about it," Mao chirped. "You know, I think I'll persuade big sister to get us some _a'ahi_ from one of the fishermen later. I'm sure you'll like it."

"What's _a'ahi?_"

"I don't know your name for it. It's a fish with yellow fins." Looking back in the basket, the young girl exclaimed "Yeek! What's this?" She reached in and carefully extracted a spiky, puffed-up piscine creature.

"Oh! Hey, that's _fugu!_"

"Is that what you call it? We can't eat this! You wanna commit suicide?" She threw the small puffer fish back into the water.

"Sorry. I didn't recognize it earlier." Juna waved sadly as her deadly catch arced through the air and landed in the water. "Bye-bye, _fugu-kun._ You know, Mao, some people consider that a delicacy where I live. An expensive one."

"Well, we shun it here. Hey, you've got a ray too!" Mao looked up at Juna. "What are you, some kind of magician? You don't usually find these out in the surf."

"Yes," Juna said, trying out her best mysterious smile. "I can call up any fish you want."

"I don't believe you." Mao eyed her skeptically. "If that's true, then catch a _raira_ for me."

"What's that?"

"A shark."

"No way! What do you think I am, crazy?"

Mao was about to reply when they heard their names called. She and Juna looked to see Sara waving at them, miming that it was time for lunch. Mao waved back, and under the tireless, unblinking gaze of the spread-winged _tori-no-hito_ statues standing behind the rise that marked the end of the beach and the beginning of the land she and Juna set off for the house, still ribbing and joking with each other. Halfway there, the Avatar looked down at her dripping shirt and was glad that Sara's rough-textured homespun wasn't transparent when wet.


	4. Dark Water, Blue Death

DARK WATER, BLUE DEATH 

**There sits my sister who drownéd me.**  
_-The Ballad of Binnorie_

Several days later, someone touched Sara's shoulder as she worked and made her jump. "Juna! Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"Sorry."

"You walk as one who has cat's feet," observed the songstress. "What're you doing here?" They were in the bottom level of the common hall. Tribal artifacts such as shields, masks and spears hung from the wooden posts and beams of the shady place, and some love sticks leaned against the open walls. The Avatar wondered why Sara had so many.

"I just came to watch you make those sticks," she said, sitting down on the rough-hewn bench beside her. "Could you teach me?"

The pretty shaman raised her eyebrows. "Whatever for? I mean, surely as a foreigner and outsider you find this custom of ours quaint and backward."

Taken aback by the harshness and vehemence she heard in the other girl's voice, Juna was speechless for a moment.

Sara sighed and lowered her head. Her knife stopped whittling. "I'm sorry. You've been nothing but a boon since you arrived here, but... I can't help it." She looked directly at Juna. "I'm naturally mistrustful of people who come from the outside."

Juna saw the barely-concealed pain in her eyes and, despite not wanting to seem overly nosy, couldn't help asking, "Why?"

Sara shook her head and held out her work. "Here. I'll show you how to make one. You're a woman, so you need to­–"

Their hands touched as Juna took hold of the stick. The world in her mind's eye came alive in sepia-toned memories. Unprepared to deal with the Drop of Time's onslaught after being free from its powers the past few days, she gasped and arched her back, her head jerking to look up at the bamboo-slatted ceiling.

------oOo------

Blood. There was blood coming out of the crook of her—Sara's—arm, flowing through a small needle into a collecting vial. The needle hurt and she wanted to pull it out, but was prevented from doing so by the eager clutch of the wizened, eyeglass-wearing old man on her forearm.

He chuckled, and the sound sent shivers traveling up Juna's—Sara's—spine. "Now, now," he said softly. His voice was reptilian and cold and cruel. "This won't take long. There, finished." He pulled the needle out of Sara's skin and placed a bandage over the puncture.

Frightened and feeling violated by his rough actions, the young girl spun around and ran away into the jungle, crying.

"Thank you for your cooperation," the old man called after her.

------oOo------

A tall, muscled man with a moustache, wearing ceremonial garb and a feathered headdress, and holding the same staff Sara carried with her, looked down sternly at her—Sara and Juna—after addressing the old man. The scientist had just left her alone with him. "Do you know what you have done, my child?" the man asked, his voice quiet and low, heavy with disapproval. The air was muggy, still, and oppressive. "Always, always remember the bird-person. How many times must I remind you of that?"

"Father..." She felt the dull pain in her arm and wished the earth would suddenly come alive and swallow her up, so great was her shame.

------oOo------

Juna gasped again, as a drowning person would, and popped out of her dream world. Beside her she heard an intake of breath akin to her own and found Sara sitting stiffly on the seat beside her, her eyes wide and unseeing. Her rigid fingers pinned Juna's to the half-finished courtship stick.

"Sara!" Juna called, trying to shake her hand free of the painful grip. "Sara, wake up!"

The other woman came out of her trance and slumped forward. Juna caught her just in time to keep her from banging headfirst into the work table.

As she came to, the shaman shook Juna's hands off her shoulders and stayed seated, silent and hunched over.

"Sara... did you–"

"Yes. Yes, I did." She twisted around to stare at Juna, a look of mingled fright and wonder and suspicion on her features. "I betrayed my father's trust, and my people as well. And for what? A tawdry necklace, a mere trinket!" The fright grew into suppressed terror. "Who _are_ you, Juna Ariyoshi? What enables you to see into my heart and mind? Are you a bird-person, awake at last, come to destroy my people and the whole world?"

"No!" Juna answered emphatically. Her hand still in the other girl's, she was caught up in the maelstrom of Sara's feelings. "Of course not!" She finally pulled free of Sara's grasp, and the stick rattled as it fell to the floor.

"You came from the sky," the shaman insisted. "You are a stranger and an outsider, and I have only your words to vouch for you."

Juna's heart grew cold and she became quiet. She stood up from the bench. "My words are all I have, Sara. I came to you bearing nothing but myself. If I do not use them, how can I prove otherwise that you're wrong, that I'm not your dreaded _tori no hito,_ that I mean you no harm? If you didn't want to trust me, why did you take me in?"

Sara gave no answer, and Juna, feeling herself hurt beyond the power of speech to describe or remedy, stalked out of the room.

------oOo------

Juna Ariyoshi sat on the sand, her legs bent, her arms round her knees. She looked out at the blazing reds and oranges of the sunset, and paid no mind to the quiet _shush-shush_ behind her, signaling someone's approach.

Sara Nome sat down beside her and also gazed at the sunset. It was a while before she spoke.

"I'm sorry."

She was startled to see a wet track down the other girl's cheek. _Have I upset her that much?_ she asked herself. "Juna..."

"Tell me, Sara," the girl interrupted her, her voice sounding lonely and pained. "Tell me, why do people hurt each other?"

"What?"

"Why must they judge so quickly? Why do they say things they don't mean? Why do they lie?" Juna sighed. "When I came here I thought there would be no troubles for me anymore. Despite what you told me, I thought this was a little slice of Heaven. Instead I find here the same suspicion and mistrust I'm forced to deal with in my own world. And from you, of all people." She dug up a handful of sand and let it trickle through her fingers. "I'm getting sick and tired of it."

"Juna." The shaman looked at her. "Stop wishing the world were perfect, because it will never be. People will always hurt each other. Whether it's deliberate or accidental, whether it's caused by confusion of loyalties, stupidity, ignorance, or outright malice, you will never avoid it." Then, shyly, she added, "The only thing to be done is to to prevent it from happening again."

The Avatar brushed her hands clean. "You know, Sara, the reason I wanted to learn how to make a love stick was so... I could give it to someone."

"Someone you love?"

Juna nodded. "Only I'm wondering why I'm even bothering thinking about such a thing, since it's plain to see that he's lost interest in me."

"Lost interest in you?"

"Yeah. He's sort of involved with someone else now..."

"You outsiders," Sara said quietly. "Always forging _kadoun_ when there should be none. Fight for him, then."

"I have." Juna scratched her hair as an exasperated person would. "Heaven knows I have."

"And?"

"I still don't know what he thinks about the both of us, my friend and I."

Sara smiled. "I've never been in love, so I find it funny I'm even talking about this with you. It's a nice feeling." She looked out at the sunset. "For much of my life I've always been busy with my duties, taking care of Mao and my people. I never had much of a chance to tend to myself. To just be a girl growing up..."

Juna turned to her with understanding in her eyes. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll find someone someday and learn more than you care to know about love. Who knows, he might just drop out of the sky, like I did, and you might have to be the one to nurse him back to health."

"The gods forbid," chuckled Sara after a moment's reflection. "That would indeed be a mixed blessing. Come back to the house, Juna. I'll show you how to make a love stick."

The young lady, after a second of thought, nodded. Both of them stood up and left.

------oOo------

Juna spent two more days with Sara and Mao, but relations were never quite the same as before. She and the shaman were reluctant to open up any more to each other, fearing that doing so might cause offense to the other. Juna reflected upon this with sadness, and thought once more how words could lead people astray and, even being left unsaid, could cause a wall to spring up between them. Perhaps the same thing was happening with her and Tokio? She couldn't recall having true talk with him, ever since she caught him with meeting with Sayuri—behind her back—several months ago. She could remember the glances burning with suspicion and guilt, the long silences on the phone, the heartsickness and despair that things would ever be right between them again, the deadly silence of the Drop of Time on the matter... perhaps it was time she sat down with him, cast caution to the wind, and tell him how she really felt. Even if it meant baring her heart once more and exposing it to his whims.

Assuming, of course, that she would ever get back to her own reality. What was it going to take for her to do so? Get atomized by another nuke? But she was enjoying herself too much to ask Sara to send her home.

She busied herself with chores and tale-telling those days, acting as Mao and her friends' reservoir of information about the outside world. In exchange for her stories they would often ply her with little gifts; a coconut drink on one day, some fruits the next. She was too embarrassed to refuse them, so she secreted them in the corner of the room she slept in with the two Nome girls, making them disappear by placing portions thereof among their meals.

On the eve of the second she found herself walking on the same deserted beach under a reddish sky, balancing an earthenware jar on her shoulder. Sara, who had accompanied her out and been waiting for her on the sand after picking some fruit and vegetables, saw what she was doing and came up to her.

"You shouldn't be doing this," she complained, tucking her sack of goodies in her belt and taking the jar from Juna's shoulder. "This is too heavy for you."

"Hey, it's alright," said Juna, trying to take the jar back. "I'm more than glad to help you. Doing all this hard work is tiring, but satisfying."

"Well, I think Mao's been duping you into doing more of her chores than usual."

Juna raised her eyebrows. "Really?" She thought about her elder sister Kaine. "Smart kid."

The two girls looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"If she ever leaves the village to live somewhere else, I'm sure she'd be able to take care of herself..." the host to the Avatar of Time began. She stopped as a sad look came over Sara's face.

"What's wrong? What did I say?"

"Nothing." The shaman balanced her load and began to walk away.

"Sara..." Juna broke her stricture against touching people and laid a hand on Sara's shoulder.

The shaman froze, putting the jar down on the sand. "What?"

"I know you told me I should resign myself to people hurting each other, but... it doesn't have to be this way between us."

Sara turned to look at her. "You're right. Forgive me. I'm not that good in dealing with people, especially outsiders. I just wish Mao wouldn't think of going away. Who would be shaman after me, and keep our traditions alive? We keep losing the young ones because they leave to look for a better future in the outside world." She would have said more, but was interrupted by Juna's sudden stiffening and cocking of the head.

"Hey! Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

Without answering Juna stood up and began running down the stretch of beach, her feet kicking up rooster tails of sand as she sprinted towards something Sara could not discern. The shaman quickly ran after her.

------oOo------

"Help!" Mao Nome screamed towards the darkening shore. "Help us!"

She was in an outrigger canoe with two other children. They had decided to take a little paddle and swim before the sun went down, and now one of the boys with her was bleeding from the exploratory bite of a shark on his left thigh.

They had heard his screams as he surfaced and quickly dragged him into the boat. As the other, uninjured boy pulled his friend in, Mao beat off the shark with her paddle. Her hand slipped and she lost the heavy mahogany implement in the water. Now, with an injured friend and a drifting canoe, they were in deep trouble. To make things worse, the shark did not leave them. Instead it took to circling the boat, its wicked dorsal fin surfacing every now and then, dissuading the children from trying to swim to shore.

"Oolo," she said to her uninjured companion, "how is Tafara?"

"I've got the bleeding stopped," the older boy answered. He had taken his shirt off and used it to bind his friend's wound. "How could you lose our only paddle like that?"

"I'm sorry!" Mao wailed. "Try pushing off a fifteen-footer the way I did and see if you don't panic too!"

There was a dull scraping sound, and the canoe rocked. The shark was bumping it again.

"Help!" yelled Mao once more towards the shore. Behind her, Oolo lit one of the torches kept in the boat for emergencies and raised it in the air.

------oOo------

Juna stood transfixed at the water's edge as she spied the little dark mass that was the canoe with the children. And, with her sight augmented by the Drop of Time, she also saw the triangular shape that rose and disappeared in the water near it. A flickering light came on in the boat, two silhouetted figures stood up, and she saw the light wave frantically.

Sara caught up with her. "Whoever's in that canoe," she said, panting, "is in trouble!"

"It's Mao," Juna reported as she peered into the distance. "She is frightened and afraid. A friend of hers is lying injured in the boat. There is a shark in the water. They cannot swim to shore. They have also lost their paddle."

As both women watched, the canoe rocked violently, and the two standing figures pitched sideways into the water. The light vanished.

Juna looked around, at the deserted beach, and heard the cry again, fainter this time. There wasn't anyone else to help.

"Sara," she said quickly, "go back to the village and tell them what's happening, will you? May I borrow your knife?"

"Eh?" Sara quickly handed over her wood-whittling knife, which she had kept stuck in her belt. "What are you going to do?"

For an answer Juna waded out and quickly disappeared into the waves sparkling with the last of the sun's dying light.

------oOo------

Oolo was a brave boy. When he and Mao were knocked into the water by the shark's bumping of the boat the first thing he did was try and get her back in, despite getting the thrill of his life when he felt something brush against his legs. The sides of the canoe were too high, however, and Mao kept thrashing and slipping. Finally, he gave up and shouted for Tafara to throw him the spear he had brought along with him. The injured boy complied, and with it in his hands, Oolo turned around and desperately searched the water for danger, encouraging Mao to keep trying to get into the boat.

Perhaps two minutes or more passed. He couldn't be sure. All he knew was that time seemed to slow down, and that he seemed to sense everything around him, from the coldness of each drop of water dripping from his hair onto his shoulders, to the sight of the beach getting dimmer in the gathering darkness, to the slapping of the water against the hull of the canoe, to each swell as it lifted him up and carried him back down, to the orange clouds high in the sky above them.

So it was that when something broke the surface of the water beside him, his heart leaped in terror and he instantly jabbed at it with his spear. He was rewarded with a yell of pain.

"You idiot!" swore Juna, pushing the spear shaft away from the side of her face. "Watch what you're doing with that thing!"

"You're the idiot, scaring me like that, outsider!" shot Oolo. He saw the line of bloody red across Juna's cheek. "Sorry."

"Never mind! Give me that!" Juna grabbed the spear from him. "Can you make it to shore? Including your friend who's been bitten?"

Oolo wanted to ask her how she knew about Tafara, but there was no time. "Yes. I will drag him, if I have to."

"Good. Now go, while I distract the shark."

Tafara, who had been listening from the canoe, slipped into the water under Mao and Oolo's urging. He grunted as the salt water stung his wounds, then gamely began to swim to shore, assisted by his two friends.

Juna swam after them, keeping her distance and hanging back, and scanning their surroundings constantly for signs of the fish. "Swim for the beach!" she urged the children, trying to keep her voice as even and encouraging as possible. "Look, it's very near now!"

She ducked underwater and searched some more. Why did the Drop of Time refuse to work now, of all times? She had tried to turn into Arjuna as she swam over to the canoe, but nothing happened. She couldn't even fly, or swim faster than usual. All that she could do now was sense where the shark was.

There. Coming out of the gloom, a large torpedo-shaped fish, with a partially open mouth and yellow catlike eyes that stared at her from across the intervening distance as it veered off to one side and began to circle her. Juna worked her cheek, unmindful of the pain, and raised a hand and began to slap the surface of the water in an arrhythmic fashion.

_Raira, raira, won't you come to me?_ she thought, singing in her mind a song she had heard the women of the village chant jokingly at the side of their nighttime campfires. _My lover's been unfaithful, I'd like you to eat him for me. Please, raira, please. Free this heart from the torture it receives._ She wanted to laugh, like she did then, but instead gripped the spear tighter.

------oOo------

"Tafara, you know something?" Mao asked as she felt the tips of her toes brush the sandy bottom.

"What?" the eleven-year-old groaned.

"You weigh a ton."

"But I'm no fatter than Oolo here," the wounded boy tried to joke. He grimaced as he began to support his weight again, as they came out of the water and staggered onto the beach.

"Look," said Oolo, pointing. "There's one of the fishing boats coming round the sand bar."

"Better late than never," Mao said, helping him lay Tafara down on the sand. "Where's Juna?"

"I don't know." Oolo looked at Mao, who turned away to gaze questingly out at the sea.

------oOo------

Sara had been lucky. Rounding the spit of land that separated the beach from the village and kept it from sight, she had come across one of their large fishing boats returning to the village at sunset, as they usually did, and shouted to the men on board the situation. The crew of the vessel promptly turned around and headed for the spot, disappearing from the shaman's sight behind the trees and rise of land.

She couldn't run anymore, so it took her about twenty minutes to walk back to the beach, where Mao and her friends, along with the fishermen, awaited her, impatiently, it seemed. The fishing vessel had run up on the beach. The small outrigger the children had been using had been left to the mercy of the tides.

As Sara walked towards the little knot of people gathered on the shore, her little sister came running out to her.

"Mao!" she exclaimed in relief as her sister hugged her. "Thank goodness you're alright!"

Mao raised her face to look up at her. There were tears running down her cheeks.

A cold dread descended upon Sara's heart. "What's wrong?"

"Juna..." sobbed Mao. She pointed towards the middle of the throng of people, where, on the sand, a blanket-wrapped bundle lay.

"No!" From somewhere deep within her tired frame Sara found the strength to run to the bundle.

------oOo------

She was still alive. Juna's face peeked out from the blankets the men had wrapped around her.

"What happened?" Sara knelt beside her. Her hand reached out to touch Juna's forehead. The Drop of Time was deep blue and icy to her touch.

"I was stupid, that's what happened," the Japanese girl replied, her voice barely audible. "I'm not in any pain, Sara. Don't worry. But I'm so cold... so cold..."

Sara leaned down to remove her blankets and see Juna's wounds for herself, but one of the fishermen held her hand and shook his head.

"No..."

A vision flashed in her mind. She jerked once under the deluge of its images, then removed her hand from the cloth cocooning Juna.

She looked up at the men surrounding her. "Quick! Help me take her to the sacred pool! We can still save her!"

One of the fishermen shook his head dubiously and was about to say something, but an old fellow stopped him with a glare and nodded at the young shaman. "Alright," he said. "Come on, boys, let's get her in the boat and go back to the village."

------oOo------

Quick as the seas and their feet could take them, the group carrying Juna made their way to the village, then up to the base of the mountain with the cross-shaped mark on its face, where the spring was. Sara instructed the men to place Juna in the middle of the pool, then leave.

"I will not be able to work my power if you are here," she explained. "Go and wait for me. Do not peek. I will know instantly if you do, and you will be responsible for the death of our 'visitor.'" The men complied with their shaman's wishes and left.

The wizened old chieftain of the village, who had accompanied them, lingered for a moment and asked, "Sara, aren't you worried that her blood will attract a _kadoun_ here?"

Sara knelt down in the water and cradled Juna's head in her lap. She shook her head. "I do not hear the wind and the water protesting. Besides, she saved the children. I will do everything I can to help her, even if it means sending her home prematurely."

The old man nodded. "As you wish. But I'm afraid we will have to draw our drinking water from somewhere else in the meantime..." He turned his back to her and disappeared into the jungle.

Left alone at last, the young shaman looked down at the bluish-gray face of Juna. Red was already beginning to stain the blankets wrapping her.

"I cannot thank you enough for saving my sister and her friends," Sara said quietly.

Juna smiled faintly up at her. "You fish-people have had your revenge and swallowed up one of the bird-people," she whispered. She looked past Sara's head at the slivers of sky visible through the jungle canopy. "I shall never see my home again..."

"Please, Juna," pleaded the shaman, blinking her tears away. "Don't talk like that. This is all my fault, for not sending you home sooner."

"No, I was relying on something I thought would be there, but wasn't." Juna coughed and grimaced, and a little trickle of blood issued from the side of her mouth. "Don't blame yourself." She gathered her breath. "I wouldn't want either of us to have that on our consciences."

"You're badly injured, and yet you still think of others... thank you," Sara said awkwardly. "Even if were really a bird-person, still I would have you as a friend." She held Juna's hand—how cold it was, she noted—and brushed strands of black hair away from her face. "I have nothing material to offer you. But I would give you a name, in the fashion of my people, as my thanks. Please accept it."

The Avatar nodded, the gesture almost imperceptible in her weakness.

Sara laid a hand on her forehead. "We don't ordinarily do it this way," she said softly. "We would usually have a big gathering with lots of food and drink and singing and dancing whenever we gift someone with a name... I name you Ranukalla, in honor of Ranukele and Ranumati, heroes of our village. It is said that Ranukele was a navigator of great renown, while Ranumati herself fought a sea monster to save my people. The name means 'child of the Ranu family.'" Her hand cupped Juna's wounded cheek. "I am sorry I doubted you."

"It's okay." Juna closed her eyes. "Thank you."

The sight of her ashen pallor and immobile countenance made Sara's heart tingle with fear. She sent a silent prayer that her gamble in sending Juna back home to where someone could help her would be answered, that her will for this once prevail over death, and closed her eyes.

------oOo------

_Mother Earth, receive her into your embrace, and take her home,_ the shaman of the Mayan people beseeched, trying to calm herself enough so she could concentrate. _Or let her die in peace, if such is to be her fate._ Then she began to sing.

Dans le calme du soir  
Lève les yeux afin de voir  
Apparaître et scintiller  
Toutes les étoiles

Dans le repos brille Arkan!  
Illumine la terre soura Mayan  
Ainsi la mer reflète Ohra  
Qui s'élève vers l'infini soura-misône

------oOo------

On reaching 'rise into the infinite,' several things happened. The pool began to glow with a white light that obliterated their surroundings. The Drop of Time suddenly burst out into brilliant blue life, sending its light straight into Sara's eyes and blinding her. She blinked and rubbed them. As she did so, she felt the weight on her lap decreasing.

When she finally regained her sight, she found herself staring up at Juna, floating upright in the air before her, still swathed in her blankets like an infant. Gone was the pale color of death on her face, and the tan she had gained. Her eyes were still closed, and the _Toki no Shizuku_ was no longer a deep, quiescent blue, but the color of a vivid summer sky, and very much alive.

The blankets fell away from Juna as she thrust her arms out to her sides. She was unclothed, and her body was shining with a light that made it painful to look at her. Her raven hair defied the pull of gravity and floated all around her, surrounding her glowing face with its darkness.

"Juna?"

The being's eyes opened and looked down with all their startling crimson color at Sara. She shook her head. "She sleeps for a while. Thank you, Guide of the Wind. You have saved me, but not for yourself, as you yourself well know. I must go home now. But before I leave, I have a warning to give you: beware the bird-people indeed, for their coming will be the fall of your tribe. But not all of them, not all of them. See past your legends and myths and face the reality. One of them will sing your songs... one of them will make you happy." Juna drifted down to Sara's side and, to her surprise, enveloped her in a light-fingered hug. "Above all," she whispered, "know that this life is not the only one, and but a gateway to the next. Love. Love is the key, Sara. Always keep love in your heart, even when despair seems to overwhelm you. It is your hope... and mankind's salvation." Juna backed off, closed her eyes and started to disappear in her light.

"Wait!" Sara stood up, stripped her headband with its feathers off, and shoved it into Juna's hand. "Goodbye!"

Her body already fading like fulgent mist, the Avatar smiled an inhuman smile. "I will remember the name you gave me. Ranukalla I will be, when next we meet. Farewell. The stars in the night sky will speak your name to me long after we have parted." Then she was gone, vanished as if she had never been, and along with her the light that illuminated everything.

Sara stood in the middle of the pool for a long time, alternately exulting that her powers had worked and pondering over Juna's cryptic words. She had the impression someone else had been talking to her, but then she knew too little of the girl who fell from the sky to really judge what it meant. Love was the key. But it was a key that needed someone to believe in it in the first place. Whence would come the strength for her to do that? She gave up wondering, met the men waiting for her in a glade a little down the mountain, and proceeded to explain what had happened. There was a chorus of disbelief, and she had to wait as some of them satisfied their curiosity by going to the now-empty and silent pool. With meek and chastened faces—and a new respect in their eyes—the doubters returned and they all went back to the village. On the way down, as she hung at the rear of the group talking with the tribe's chieftain, she found a small metal container on the trail before her.

"Those men," she sighed. "Always cluttering up the place." She picked it up, pushed her unbound hair back, and looked at it once before tucking it away in a fold of her dress, to decide on what to do with later. It was an empty can, yellow and silver-burnished, of Appare Genki orange juice.

------oOo------

"Her blood pressure's rising," the lab-gown-clad technician reported, rechecking his readouts and staring up at the tall Plexiglas tube filled with the greenish fluid. "Oh-oh. She's moving. It looks like she's about to wake up."

Teresa Wong looked worriedly at the tube. "Very well. Call the medical team. Get ready to transfer her into the infirmary if necessary."

"What if she goes wild while coming out of the anesthetic?"

"You let the doctors worry about that," answered Teresa. "I don't think we could stop her anyway."

She glanced across the vast room, at another tube twin to the one she was staring at. She hoped Chris Hawkins, suspended in it, senseless and in a trance, knew what he was doing.


	5. The Here And Now

THE HERE AND NOW

**The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived, though its first material expression be destroyed; a vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer; but when the last individual of a race of living things breathes no more, another Heaven and another Earth must pass before such a one can be again.**  
-William Beebe

_I am in the darkness once again, where I belong,_ thought Juna to herself, as she floated naked and alone in the black void, staring down once more upon the Earth, a blue-and-white marble amidst the white pinpoints of the stars. She felt placid and peaceful, weightless and free. Gone was the warmth of the blood dripping down her side, the coldness of the air around her, the dull pain of her mauled body shutting down bit by bit...

_Do you really belong here?_ came another voice. She spun around to find Chris Hawkins, once more wearing his characteristic blue bodysuit, his blond hair floating away from his face as he shared the vacuum of space with her.

_Chris! What's going on?_

_What's going on?_ The powerful telepath floated down and held up a blue apostrophe-shaped stone in front of her. This_ is what's going on,_ he said. _I am making you choose again, Juna._

Juna clapped a hand to her forehead and found it smooth-surfaced. That _was_ the Drop of Time he was holding in his fingers. _I... what do you mean?_

Chris sighed. _Choose, Juna. I can let you die, and you can find the peace you seek. Or, you can choose to remain the Avatar and continue your stay on Earth._

Juna reached a hand out. _I never forgot I was living on borrowed time ever since you gave me the Toki no Shizuku._ She clasped Chris' hand in her own. _I choose to continue. My promises I keep._

_It will not be easy._

_And how is that any different from the life I lead today?_

Chris looked at her with admiration in his eyes. _You do learn! Come. You have a long road to recovery, but I have no doubt you'll manage it somehow. They are tying you down now in your gurney because you're on the verge of jumping off it..._

_Chris?_

_Yes?_

_I know the Toki no Shizuku was what saved me from the bomb. Will it work now? It failed me when I needed it. And why are you even bothering to give me this chance? You could just pick someone else to be the Avatar in my place._

Chris floated silently as he composed his answer. _Yes, it will work now. And it failed you because you tried to call on it while it was still trying to heal itself from all the damage it had sustained in protecting you from the blast. You must forgive it that. Think of what happened to you as a learning experience. A very painful one, and something not even I would wish to go through, but... well, you know of the saying 'A person's worth is measured by the depth of their suffering,' don't you? At least be glad you are here with me and can choose your fate. Many others who find themselves in your position don't, and are forced to go down the dark valley where all roads meet, will they or nil they. As for wanting you to still be the Avatar... I wouldn't want to let all that learning go to waste, Juna. _Chris smiled his crooked smile._ It would be terrible of me to do so. And there are so few who can be Avatars..._

Juna looked at her mentor. _Now I know this has all been a dream. A precious thing, but a dream nevertheless._

_Eh? What makes you say that?_

_You're giving me all the answers. That's so unlike you, Chris._

The TI-1 had the grace to look embarrassed. _Well, seeing as how you've been through some rough times_—ghostly laughter sounded in the void around them—_I guess you deserve some straight talk for once. You're going to need to concentrate your attention on getting well these coming days._

Juna suddenly found the boy-man hugging her. She hugged him back, and was surprised to smell, in place of the scent of sickness and infirmity Chris usually had about himself, a faint fragrance which reminded her of wildflowers in his hair.

------oOo------

_**Even if the morning seems far off  
Even if the rain pounds down on me  
I'll run right up to you...**_  
-Maaya Sakamoto, _Mameshiba_

Juna Ariyoshi carefully picked her way down the disused road leading from SEED's mountain fastness. She was eager to get back to her family and friends. After several weeks, the doctors had finally given her a clean bill of health, and Chris and Miss Wong had all but kicked her out of the installation, the latter saying, "We don't need you just now. Go straighten your life out, then come back here." With much joy in her heart the Avatar had accepted the offer. It only made her struggle back to the land of the living all the more sweet and fulfilling. The days and nights of intense pain forgotten, she filled her backpack with a few things and was out the door, refusing a ride down the mountain, reassuring the doctors and nurses—and Katsunari—that she would take it easy and stop frequently along the trail, and call them instantly if anything became amiss.

On the last leg of the trail, beyond the solitary shrine that marked the end of an offshoot of it, it had begun to rain, so she brought out the windbreaker she had borrowed from Ka-chan and unfurled her umbrella. Through the cold mountain drizzle she spied the two gigantic _torii_, one black with age and one red, flanking the path where it joined a hardtop road. And, standing just beyond them...

"Tokio! To-chan!"

Skidding and sliding in her eagerness, Juna ran down the mud-slicked trail, to join Tokio Ooshima beyond the _torii_. For a moment they stood in front of each other, speechless and awkward. She sensed great embarrassment in him, and shyness.

"Juna..."

"Tokio..."

They stopped, looked at each other and smiled.

"You go ahead," said the blond-haired boy with the dark shades.

"No, you," Juna countered. She extended her umbrella over his cowled and jacketed figure. "Why are you here, standing in the rain waiting for me?"

"Because I... Miss Wong called and told me you were being discharged today. I saw you coming down the trail and decided to wait for you here."

Juna nodded. From what she had been told, her unconscious self had washed up on a shore in Chiba two days after the bomb blast, with no shark bites but in severe shock and exhibiting traces of radiation poisoning, with her aura suit blasted off her, her Drop of Time inactive; SEED found out about her recovery through NHK Domestic News and had, using fake 'parents' and documents, surreptitiously retrieved her from the hospital she was brought to, in order to better care for her, and to avoid some potentially embarrassing and possibly fatal questions and investigations. That was almost a month ago, and according to Miss Wong Tokio, upon learning that the organization had Juna in their possession, made almost daily trips from the city just to be by her side.

"Why? Why didn't you want to meet me?"

The smile disappeared from Tokio's face. "Juna, you know why."

Juna nodded; yes, she did know why. To put off the time of reckoning between them... "You could've gone all the way up the mountain, you know. That way you wouldn't have had to get wet waiting for me."

"No. I've had my fill of antiseptics and gowns and that stuff. And I didn't want to see you lying in that hyperbaric chamber anymore," Tokio admitted. "Katsunari not with you?" he asked quickly.

"No. She said she wasn't feeling well, so she's staying for a day or two while she gets herself checked." Juna reached out and removed Tokio's shades.

"Hey, what was that for?"

Juna stuffed the accessory into his jacket's pockets and kissed him. "I missed you."

A million things suddenly intruded themselves into Tokio's mind. He felt the momentary warmth of Juna's lips on his own, and wanted more of that fragrant softness. He stood there uncertainly, watching her expectant face, seeing her pale, rain-dewed skin, the pink flush of her cheeks, her shining dark eyes, and fought the urge to put his arms around her, so near, so near...

"About Sayuri..."

"No. Don't tell me about that now." Juna looked straight into his eyes, drinking them in. How she had missed them. _They_ told her she was home, more than anything else could. "Tell me how you feel."

Tokio snorted. "Why don't you just reach into my thoughts and tell me what I think?"

"Tokio..."

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry." It was a long time before he spoke up again. "I-I never thought I'd see you again..." He threw his hood off, stepped back out of the umbrella's shade, and looked straight up at the gray sky.

"From what Chris told me, I thought you'd choose to die, rather than fight and come back."

Juna gazed lovingly at him, so obviously camouflaging the tears in his eyes with the tears from the sky, and said,

_Let others speak  
of harps and  
heavenly choirs  
I've made my decision  
to remain here  
with the Earth_

_if the old grey poet  
felt he could turn and  
live with the animals  
why should I be too good  
to stay and die with them_

_and the great road of the Milky Way  
that Sky Trail my Alnaki ancestors  
strode to the last Happy Home  
does not answer my dreams  
I do not believe_

_we go up to the sky  
unless it is  
to fall again  
with the rain_

"What was that?" Tokio asked, looking quizzically at her.

"Nothing. Just something I read a long time ago." Juna pulled him back under the umbrella. "Silly boy, don't go getting yourself wet. We still have a long drive back to the city. And we still have a lot to talk about."

"Yeah, we do. Juna, I'm so sorry I acted like an idiot towards you..." The words tumbled out of Tokio's mouth. After waiting for so long to utter them, he felt he could perhaps be forgiven for not saying them more formally...

"Hush." She put her finger over his lips. "We will speak of that in time. Right now I'd rather be getting home to Mom and Kaine."

They walked across the road, to where Tokio's motorbike was secreted away under some pines, and after he had wiped the seat clean they got on and started back to Kobe.

"What will you tell them?" Tokio asked as he carefully negotiated the road down the mountain.

Juna wiped away the droplets blurring her helmet's acrylic faceplate. Both of them were getting seriously wet, but a little water never hurt anyone anyway, so they didn't mind it. "Huh?"

"Kaine and your mom."

"That I got separated from Katsunari and Yuuki, lost my purse in the panic, and fell and struck my head and got temporary amnesia during the explosion. Miss Wong's ready to back me up on that with the right documents."

"Geez. I sure hope your parents get taken in by that." There had been widespread panicking and rioting, and some damage had been caused to Tokyo by the nuke, although it was slight and nothing compared to what the city would have experienced had the warhead detonated where it was originally. Then it would have been the third city in the world to experience first-hand a nuclear explosion. Hiroshima, Nagasaki... Tokyo. Only now, because of Juna and Nausicaä's interference, that would never happen. Of course, there was the much-heightened tension in the region and indeed throughout the world to think about, but other heads would take care of that. It was not given to the younger Ariyoshi daughter nor to the eleventh child of Jhil of the Valley of Wind to master all the troubles of their worlds.

Thinking of the wind-rider, Juna went over what Katsunari had told her, that she had received a package postmarked from Koganei the previous evening. In it were two Taira River stone earrings. A scribbled note indicated these were for Juna. The other content of the box... was Katsunari's broken mini-iPod.

Juna hugged Tokio tighter. So the Princess was alive. She wondered if they would ever meet again. As for Sara Nome... Juna had a lot of time, as she recovered, to experience visions that finally explained everything to her conscious self. Perhaps the shaman would find happiness in the stars along with Shin Kudou, far away from the Earth and its miseries. Her tan-skinned visage and intense eyes lingered in Juna's mind, along with her words. _Fight for him, then._

"Tokio?" Juna called over the noise of the rain and wind.

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"What?" Tokio tapped the side of his helmet.

"I said I love you!"

"You're going to have to speak louder! I can't understand you!"

"Oh! Pull over!" Juna shouted.

Tokio heard that, and after he had stopped on the asphalt shoulder Juna quickly pulled him off the bike, yanked off her helmet and his, and, unmindful of the rain, grabbed him by the cheeks and planted her lips firmly on his. They kissed for a long time, both with their eyes closed, savoring the warmth and feel of each other.

"There!" she yelled as they finished. "That's what I was trying to say!"

A slow grin broke out on Tokio's face. His eyes sparkled with mischievousness.

"I'm sorry, but you'll have to repeat what you said. I'm still not quite sure I caught it."

"You idiot! Taking advantage of me so soon!" Juna laughed as she leaned towards him.

THE END

**Author's Endnotes:** The poem Juna recites to Tokio is _Canticle_ by Joseph Bruchac. _Mameshiba_ comes from the Arjuna soundtrack, and is written by Yoko Kanno.


End file.
